My Adventures With Ferrari Ownership

Category Archives: Day Trips

After the misadventure of the previous weekend I was excited to once again get to drive my Ferrari (although I was a little apprehensive). Unlike the previous week, I arranged for someone from Slade’s Garage to collect me from Beaconsfield train station. I had also decided to take a slightly different route back to the Cotswolds, via the M40 and Oxford; partly because I had also arranged to meet a friend in Cirencester later that evening. The journey was uneventful until I had passed Oxford and was cruising along the A40. Unfortunately I failed to keep an eye on my fuel gauge, and all of a sudden I was down to a single bar and a warning light! It was time to start paying attention and find a Shell garage.

So on the second day of owning my 360, I had managed to scuff the underside of the front bumper! It was’t much of a consolation knowing that this is a common wound with Ferrari’s, although there was’t a lot I could do about it now. Still, I my brother and his fiancée had been told to come and visit, as had my grandmother, so I was able to show them what I had achieved. I followed this up, on the Sunday, with a drive to the midlands to surprise my granddad. After a lovely drive in the Sunday morning sun, I made my way into Ledbury and interrupted breakfast. (The road through the town centre is in terrible shape, but the ring road is fantastically smooth and more or less straight.)

A week is a long time. Although in my limited experience (of now two cars) it’s exactly the time it takes to go from paying a deposit and driving away. This is just enough time to sort out finance and insurance, however neither of these were as simple as my research had lead me to believe.

The first thing to sort out was the finance, as no matter how much insurance I had, without any money I would not be driving away in my own Ferrari. Before I had even been out to Slade’s Garage I had already started the process of moving my share of the funds from a longterm ISA to my regular current account, but I now had to convince somebody else to lend me the rest, which in these constrained times is easier said than done (even with nearly ⅓ of the price all ready and waiting). After going backwards and forwards with several lenders it was actually my bank who were willing to lend me the rest—perhaps there is such a thing as loyalty.